Robert Go, Jakarta – Taking his case directly to the people after Friday prayers in Jakarta, President Abdurrahman Wahid made his strongest appeal yet for a review of 1966 parliamentary decrees banning the communist ideology in Indonesia. "The spirit of this regulation infringes on someone's basic rights without clear justifications," he said.

This is why he has been advocating that the country's lawmakers re-examine not only the edict in question, but also events preceding its enactment.

Displaying his background as a revered Muslim cleric, the President used personal anecdotes and the Quran to drive home his arguments. One of his statements – "that God judges a man by deeds and faith" and not by membership in the Indonesian Communist Party – seemed to be a direct challenge to prominent clerics who had voiced objections to a repeal of the ban on the basis that communism was anti-Islam and promoted atheism.

In recent weeks, Mr Abdurrahman has stepped up his campaign to revisit Indonesia's history with communism. Two weeks ago, he made a televised request directed at the military, urging a reopening of its case files on the September 1965 attempted coup which was blamed on the Communist Party and anti-communist hunt which some said claimed more than 500,000 lives.

Since then, he has opened a national dialogue by incorporating the issue into his public addresses. "The original 1945 Constitution guaranteed the rights of each citizen to hold every ideology in this country," he said at the opening of the Indonesian Democratic Party-Perjuangan (PDI-P) congress last week.

Opposition to his intentions comes not only from religious figures, but also from within his Cabinet. "In my opinion, the decree should be maintained," Law Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra told reporters before a Cabinet meeting yesterday. Mr Yusril, who heads the Islamic Crescent Star Party, joins a growing pool of political leaders who warn that lifting the ban will shake the country's fragile stability.

But some academics take a different view of Mr Abdurrahman's efforts – including his public apology to the victims of the 1965 massacre. They argue that Indonesia's progress towards democracy depends on protection of all ideologies, including communism.

Political analyst Soedjati Djiwandono wrote in The Jakarta Post: "The public apology was the right step towards a long and probably painful process of national reconciliation."

Mr Rufinus Lahur, an analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, indicated that Mr Abdurrahman's conciliatory remarks on communism not only served to firm-up the fledgling roots of democracy here, but was also a message to the rest of the world.